Press Releases - Archive

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection informed the Belgrade City Administration that the “Notice of intent to form a data file” named “User Records of the “Belgrade Senior Card”” which it submitted to him, the Commissioner considers irrelevant. The aforementioned notice was delivered by a courier service on 31 October 2017 at 15.15h, after the Commissioner initiated an oversight procedure in connection with the particular case.

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection said that yesterday’s reaction of representatives of the city government to the opening of the oversight procedure over the implementation of the Law on Personal Data Protection regarding the “Senior Card” Project, represents a nervous, noncultural and transparent attempt to deceive the public.

The Commissioner will not comment on the street manners and the vocabulary of the city manager, a city official who has obviously completely lost the coordinates in relation to his own role, position and responsibility, but will dwell only on facts.

OVERISGHT PROCEDURE OVER THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LAW ON PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION IN THE SO-CALLED “SENIOR CARD” PROJECT

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, on the occasion of the so-called “Senior card” project presented yesterday by the Prime Minister and the Mayor of Belgrade, was addressed by numerous journalists with questions related to the project. The Commissioner points out that this is an interest which is quite legitimate, but that, according to the law, information cannot be requested from the Commissioner, that it must be requested from the authorities in whose work it was created, that is, from the city authorities, and only if they deny it, they are entitled to file a complaint with the Commissioner.

The Commissioner expects the city authorities, in order to pre-empt any complaints to the Commissioner, on a proactive basis to provide answers to questions that have already been opened in the public, such as, for example, which authority and when made the decision on the "Senior Card" project, whether and when the tender procedure was announced for the production of the cards and the website which, as announced, it will be available to card users, what exactly means that the "first" cards are free and from which funds are paid, does this mean that pensioners will pay for “other” cards, when and how much, etc.?

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, in the process of preparing the Bill on Electronic Communications, which the Government of Serbia recently established, gave his opinion on two occasions, pointing to the need to review or change a number of solutions from the Bill for the purpose of personal data protection. The Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications which prepared the Draft Law, largely accepted the Commissioner's suggestions and incorporated them into the text of the Bill.

The Commissioner, however, considers it necessary and important to draw the attention, once again, of the MPs and the public to the provisions of the Bill which prescribe the obligation to register prepaid SIM card users (Article 143).